Saturday, February 28, 2015

Broke down and took Sudafed today. Not sure if that's why I felt a
little better or if I'm actually better; possibly both. Still didn't get
anything done but I did manage to bring in firewood, take Banshee for a
walk, get the utilities money from both renters, and write a review.
Hopefully I'll get another one written tonight. Damn near froze to death
walking Banshee and getting wood; now I am enjoying some hot jasmine
tea (made with black tea instead of green).

The maple seeds
arrived today; that was fast shipping! Now to look up what they need in
the way of stratification. Have to keep them in the house to stratify
and germinate them; there are so many mice in the greenhouse & hen
house that they run around my feet when I go in. Today one ran across in
front of me, then stopped and looked up at me for the longest time as
if it expected something of me. I could swear it shrugged as it turned
and ran away.. but that could be the cold meds talking.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Planted artichoke and cardoon seeds today, in little four packs, about a
dozen each. To fill out the flat, I also put in some Allium stellatum
(Prairie Onion, which is both decorative and edible), Tunica saxifraga
(Coat flower, a low growing groundcover with pink flowers), and Achlys
triphylla (Vanilla Leaf, a woodland plant with sweet smelling leaves).
Silver has already been laying with his head on the flat; I'm sure he's
only waiting for the potting soil to dry out some before he gives it the
whole body treatment. Which I'm sure he's only doing so they'll be the
correct temperature and germinate faster.

It's still too early
to really be planting things as we don't have enough space or enough
light in the house and can't afford to heat the greenhouse, but the
perennials should be sturdy enough to go out to the greenhouse not too
long after they germinate.

Did *not* take Banshee for a walk
today; I have once again come down with a crud that has filled my sinus,
given me a sore throat and fever, and has my ear aching. Bah.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Sunny but cold today. I did hang the laundry outside, but it only got
about half dry. Still, that's a few cents of electricity saved by
running the dryer a shorter time afterwards!

Took Banshee for a
walk; all the daylilies are coming up, the lilacs have very swollen
buds, the rugosa roses are budding up, and crocus are poking their
little noses up. All this is at least a month earlier than normal for
our yard.

The book I ordered on growing and cooking Oriental
vegetables arrived today. Looks pretty good; lots of vegetables I've
never heard of before. I'm so eager to get to gardening it's silly. I
know it'll still be too cold for over a month, even for the cold season
crops. But indoor gardening is starting: the artichoke and cardoon seeds
are soaking in warm water and will be planted in little containers
tomorrow. They take a long time and they need to go out in the cold and
then back to warm to trigger blooming, so they have to be fair sized
while we still are in cold weather.

Monday, February 23, 2015

And now I've gone and ordered $40 worth of maple seeds. It's a variety;
'Crimson King', sugar maple, and four kinds of Japanese maples. I've had
good luck with germinating maples before but I lost the seedlings when
the greenhouse collapsed one winter. The place I used to buy tree seeds
from seems to be out of business even though their website is still up,
so I'm trying an ebay seller who has a 99.3% positive rating. Soon my
house will be full of flats of germinating seeds of all kinds- all with
cats laying on them.

Tim was home yesterday and, after doing the morning alpaca chores, we
started doing our seed orders. We meant to only order a few things, and
only from one company, but the best laid plans went awry and we ended up
with a whole lot of things- mostly vegetables- from two companies (Pine
Tree and Johnny's). Then I also did an order of seeds for perennials
from Hudson and iris seeds from the Median Iris Society.

While
the flowers- mainly perennials- are what excites me the most, I can't
seem to look at a vegetable seed catalog with out decided that this is
the year I'll gather the energy to take better care of the vegetable
garden, that the Oriental greens won't bolt, that I'll make a salad
every day in summer and lots of stir fries, that I'll keep everything
weeded and use lots of herbs. And keep the slugs from eating things
before we can get to them. Those were my worst nemesis last year. I even
ordered a book on growing and cooking with Oriental vegetables- used
from Amazon. I still want to check out what Angel Grove has this year
for tree seeds. Time to get some crab apples & Japanese maples going
again.

The whole thing energized me and made me want to do all
the things. Sadly, the energy was short lived and the only thing I got
done today that was on my list was the seed orders. Got a lot of other
things partly done, but that doesn't get them off the list. Tomorrow
I'll go to town and that means I won't get much done. *sigh*